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Teachers, parents urge board to preserve elementary instructional-technology facilitators
Summary
Three teachers and a signed staff letter told the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board that planned reductions to full-time instructional technology facilitator (ITF) positions will harm students, add work for teachers and reduce campus-level tech support.
Speakers at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board meeting on an evening when the board heard public comment urged the district to reverse planned cuts to full-time instructional-technology facilitator positions.
Jeanette Dixon, a fourth-grade teacher, read several parents' letters and said the ITF position keeps students safe from online harms; she cited an incident at Scroggs Elementary in which staff detected a bullying campaign via Google Docs. "We are leaving students extremely vulnerable if we do not keep a full time position at the elementary school," Dixon said.
Elizabeth Angel, the gifted specialist at Scroggs Elementary, read a staff letter she said gathered more than 50 signatures in 48 hours. Angel described the school’s ITF, identified in the presentation as Mr. Brown, as a recent hire whose coaching and co-teaching had already changed instruction at Scroggs. She said the full-time ITF position will be eliminated and combined with two other schools next year, and that Mr. Brown was not being reassigned to a full-time ITF role in the district.
Kenzie Patrick, a kindergarten teacher at Scruggs Elementary, described three classroom projects the ITF supported this year: a green-screen video project for a zoology unit, an hour-of-code lab using programmable robots and microcomputers, and an introduction to Seesaw and device-care lessons for kindergarteners. Patrick said those activities built students' digital skills and helped classroom use of technology run more smoothly.
Speakers repeatedly noted that ITF positions are funded locally, not by the state, and said this made the staffing decision a local budgeting choice. Speakers urged the board to visit Scroggs and other schools and to consider funding changes to restore full-time ITF positions districtwide.
Board members did not take formal action during the public-comment segment. The comments will be part of the record as the board continues budget and staffing discussions ahead of next school year.
